Let's Play: Fable (No, not that one!)

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Let's Play! > Let's Play: Fable (No, not that one!)

Rocket Baby Dolls: Mar 3, 2006; Normally I don't make aesthetic criticisms in other peoples' homes, but that rug looks like a beaver exploded. If meat is murder, then that rug is at least a severe beating.

What is this?

Fable is a PC point-and-click adventure game that was developed by Simbiosis Interactive and released in 1996. It is also the name of an RPG series that began in 2004 but none of those games are related to this one. We play as Quickthorpe and we have been given a quest to destroy four gems that are guarded by four beasts in four separate lands, nothing too strenuous then. This is a standard point-and-click adventure game for the most part. I've been told that it is possible to soft lock the game and there are also numerous ways to die, a death reel has become somewhat of a tradition.

LP details

This is another game from my youth that was on my wishlist for as long as I could remember but I was unable to attain a copy until recently, so this will be the first time that I will be playing through this game. This is going to be a VLP and I will be recording commentary during the recording which is all ad-libbed, unfortunately. It won't be a blind playthrough as such as I will be using a guide and I will do a test run before recording each video so it makes the actual process easier as it cuts down on pointless clicking and helps with the pacing of the gameplay.

Let's Play: Fable

(There's a slight cut at the start and the end of the introduction. I had to record it in MS-DOS as the audio in the Windows version kept skipping.)

Bonus Videos

Alternate North American Ending
Death Reel

Rocket Baby Dolls fucked around with this message at 22:55 on Aug 15, 2022

# ¿ Jul 28, 2022 00:05

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# ¿ May 9, 2024 22:54

Rocket Baby Dolls: Mar 3, 2006; Normally I don't make aesthetic criticisms in other peoples' homes, but that rug looks like a beaver exploded. If meat is murder, then that rug is at least a severe beating.

sb hermit posted:

Maybe it's becsuse of the codec being used, but the intro is very hard to hear when the narrator decides to speak softly. I'm surprised that subtitles weren't supplied.

Having both an ms-dos and windows version seems rare, unless the latter was part of a re-release. Was it Win95 or Win 3.1? And did you need to tweak the config.sys or autoexec.bat files?

I looked into it further and the game was released to play on either MS-DOS or Windows 95 like most other games from that time. The main difference with playing it on Windows 95 is that it uses DirectX and everything runs a lot smoother.

# ¿ Jul 28, 2022 07:30

Rocket Baby Dolls: Mar 3, 2006; Normally I don't make aesthetic criticisms in other peoples' homes, but that rug looks like a beaver exploded. If meat is murder, then that rug is at least a severe beating.

# ¿ Jul 28, 2022 18:38

Rocket Baby Dolls: Mar 3, 2006; Normally I don't make aesthetic criticisms in other peoples' homes, but that rug looks like a beaver exploded. If meat is murder, then that rug is at least a severe beating.

By popular demand posted:

even Kingdom O' Magic was better than this.

Now that you've said this I can't recall the game using any innuendo.

I seem to be using version v1.00E of Fable, I have no idea if that's just a universal version or if the E stands for the European release. If I do have a copy of the European version it means that we are in for the worse of the two endings. If I can find a way to open .imx files then I could know for sure.

# ¿ Jul 28, 2022 19:21

Rocket Baby Dolls: Mar 3, 2006; Normally I don't make aesthetic criticisms in other peoples' homes, but that rug looks like a beaver exploded. If meat is murder, then that rug is at least a severe beating.

I'm doing a test run for the next update and I think that I've hit a very confusing block within the first few minutes. I have to give an item to a man to proceed, I have said item and he's not accepting it so therefore I cannot proceed.

Edit: No, it's just me not reading the manual. When you "take" an item from your inventory you can change the "use" command to "give".

Rocket Baby Dolls fucked around with this message at 22:09 on Jul 29, 2022

# ¿ Jul 29, 2022 22:04

Rocket Baby Dolls: Mar 3, 2006; Normally I don't make aesthetic criticisms in other peoples' homes, but that rug looks like a beaver exploded. If meat is murder, then that rug is at least a severe beating.

In this video, Quickthorpe begins exploring the map's eastern side and meets some new and interesting people. But only a couple of these people don't seem to be actively trying to kill or be a dick to him, or both, as far as I know. There is one area where I examined things in an order that I didn't intend to so I missed out on some minor dialogue: If you examine the crow you get a small description. If you try to talk to it doesn't talk back, you just get told that it doesn't talk. I may start recording some more content for a potential video of missed dialogue.

# ¿ Jul 30, 2022 00:20

Rocket Baby Dolls: Mar 3, 2006; Normally I don't make aesthetic criticisms in other peoples' homes, but that rug looks like a beaver exploded. If meat is murder, then that rug is at least a severe beating.

I shouldn't really be commenting on the endings as I haven't seen them in context yet.

# ¿ Jul 30, 2022 14:05

Rocket Baby Dolls: Mar 3, 2006; Normally I don't make aesthetic criticisms in other peoples' homes, but that rug looks like a beaver exploded. If meat is murder, then that rug is at least a severe beating.

I'm conducting a test run for the next update and encountered a glitch, Quickthorpe decided that he was going to go back to his home planet. I was only quick enough to capture a screenshot as he decided to walk into the sky at three times his normal size.

# ¿ Aug 1, 2022 10:18

Rocket Baby Dolls: Mar 3, 2006; Normally I don't make aesthetic criticisms in other peoples' homes, but that rug looks like a beaver exploded. If meat is murder, then that rug is at least a severe beating.

I haven't been able to recreate it, unfortunately. I've recorded another video which ends as the chapter ends. It's only going to be a fifteen minute video as I wanted to start the new chapter with a new video. It took me over an hour to record though as I was having issues with the UI and getting Quickthorpe killed a couple of times by accident.

It turns out that he will examine 9 out of 10 objects from a safe distance, but examining that tenth object makes him walk to his death.

# ¿ Aug 1, 2022 17:34

Rocket Baby Dolls: Mar 3, 2006; Normally I don't make aesthetic criticisms in other peoples' homes, but that rug looks like a beaver exploded. If meat is murder, then that rug is at least a severe beating.

This video is the final part of the first chapter. Quickthorpe finishes up his business in The Frozen Lands and prepares himself to face the Ice Giant.

It's a fairly short video as I wanted to start the next video in the new land. This took over an hour to record which was all down to human error and now I'm playing back this video I've noticed that my mic was having some issues during this recording. A lot of the re-recordings were down to making too many misclicks as the UI is not the most intuitive and parts of it are against my natural instincts with these games. I also had an accidental death late into a recording which I explain in this video.

The glitchy mic is bothering me somewhat and it's too late to re-record again tonight.

# ¿ Aug 1, 2022 22:45

Rocket Baby Dolls: Mar 3, 2006; Normally I don't make aesthetic criticisms in other peoples' homes, but that rug looks like a beaver exploded. If meat is murder, then that rug is at least a severe beating.

Welcome to The Land Of Mists! This chapter is shorter compared to the first one and I've decided to divide it into two parts. I'm not sure why this game gets so much dislike as the first two chapters have been quite delightful, although there are still two more chapters to go so there is still plenty of time for things to take a nose dive. The only real issue I'm having now is the inventory system as there are a lot of useless objects cluttering it.

Rocket Baby Dolls fucked around with this message at 13:58 on Aug 4, 2022

# ¿ Aug 4, 2022 12:19

Rocket Baby Dolls: Mar 3, 2006; Normally I don't make aesthetic criticisms in other peoples' homes, but that rug looks like a beaver exploded. If meat is murder, then that rug is at least a severe beating.

sb hermit posted:

I think Jemima isn't necessarily protecting anything. I think she's just the obligatory brigand in the area and her day job is to kill unwary adventurers with her fancy drum.

She's only making people fall asleep with her hypno drum, but she still looks like she's having fun doing it. To be honest, who wouldn't want to have fun if they owned a hypno drum?

# ¿ Aug 4, 2022 21:41

Rocket Baby Dolls: Mar 3, 2006; Normally I don't make aesthetic criticisms in other peoples' homes, but that rug looks like a beaver exploded. If meat is murder, then that rug is at least a severe beating.

This video is the other half of the second chapter, our time in the Land Of The Mists is now over. I have started to record the death reel but I'm not too far in with replaying the game just yet. There doesn't seem to be enough content to make a dedicated additional footage video, it seems like we've only missed a few lines of dialogue.

# ¿ Aug 7, 2022 22:36

Rocket Baby Dolls: Mar 3, 2006; Normally I don't make aesthetic criticisms in other peoples' homes, but that rug looks like a beaver exploded. If meat is murder, then that rug is at least a severe beating.

sb hermit posted:

I had thought it would be a much more involved process to kill the snake demon but it turns out that a lot of the game solutions don't require the kind of backtracking and questing that is normally needed in, say, a Sierra game.

Also, is the route to the Emerald Forest a path back to the first world or is it an entirely new world?

I'm not even sure if there is even a way to return to a previous area, it seems like each area is self-contained which makes life a lot easier. The only issue is the inventory but I've mentioned that before.

I was thinking about this earlier and I'm glad that you brought it up as I didn't even try to see what would happen if I chose that option. I'll give it a try in a short while.

# ¿ Aug 7, 2022 23:27

Rocket Baby Dolls: Mar 3, 2006; Normally I don't make aesthetic criticisms in other peoples' homes, but that rug looks like a beaver exploded. If meat is murder, then that rug is at least a severe beating.

I went back in and asked about the Enchanted Forest. I've also thought that there is a possibility that each area may be self-contained but it still may be possible that we need items from these regions for later areas, something that has been notorious in many an adventure game before now. Anyway, this is the response that we get:

# ¿ Aug 7, 2022 23:50

Rocket Baby Dolls: Mar 3, 2006; Normally I don't make aesthetic criticisms in other peoples' homes, but that rug looks like a beaver exploded. If meat is murder, then that rug is at least a severe beating.

sb hermit posted:

We never get anything from the red gargoyle after it's freed, so either there's a mechanism to visit past areas (which is unlikely) or there's ways of getting the game into an unwinnable state.

Of course, the last possibility is that there is actually no need to free the red gargoyle.

We had to free the red gargoyle because it was stopping us from entering the ship.

# ¿ Aug 8, 2022 00:04

Rocket Baby Dolls: Mar 3, 2006; Normally I don't make aesthetic criticisms in other peoples' homes, but that rug looks like a beaver exploded. If meat is murder, then that rug is at least a severe beating.

life_source posted:

What a fascinatingly weird game. There's lots of foreshadowing about other things going on, and when it's combined with the slang and language occasionally used makes me interested with where it will end up.

Fascinatingly weird is a good way to describe this game!

I started off by saying that the original ending to this game was the worse of the two but haven't seen them in context. After satisfying more curiosity without ruining too much I think that I stand corrected.

Rocket Baby Dolls fucked around with this message at 01:07 on Aug 8, 2022

# ¿ Aug 8, 2022 00:59

Rocket Baby Dolls: Mar 3, 2006; Normally I don't make aesthetic criticisms in other peoples' homes, but that rug looks like a beaver exploded. If meat is murder, then that rug is at least a severe beating.

In this video, Quickthorpe explores The Engulfed Fortress and deals with Vivern The Gorgon. Along the way, he also meets some friendly characters and visits some vibrant places. This video is the third chapter in its entirety. I haven't playtested the fourth chapter yet so I don't know whether we have one or two videos left until the end of the LP. I need to start working on the death reel as I only have a couple, the save file that I was using for it became corrupted but thankfully I wasn't too far into replaying the game.

I decided to watch the endings with context and I was wrong in my initial assumptions, the original ending is a lot better than the alternate one that they replaced it with.

# ¿ Aug 12, 2022 12:21

Rocket Baby Dolls: Mar 3, 2006; Normally I don't make aesthetic criticisms in other peoples' homes, but that rug looks like a beaver exploded. If meat is murder, then that rug is at least a severe beating.

Nidoking posted:

A couple of possibly fun bits of trivia:

While only the least likely line of dialogue gets you kelp from the seahorses, and there are many ways to miss it, if they leave without giving it to you, you can wait around for a while or leave the screen and return later, and they'll come back. At that point, anything you say that doesn't immediately offend them will give them an opening to give you the kelp. This was a particularly frustrating puzzle for me back in the day because I'd read a review that said that if you didn't get the kelp, you were screwed, and there was no chance to save between being on the boat and that conversation. I reloaded so many times searching for the correct option, afraid to end the conversation (the correct option) because the review had warned me not to do that. I have no idea how I ever figured out that there was a second chance, easier than the first.

The music loop that plays in Kouppa's house is a very short phrase from Simon & Garfunkel's "59th Street Bridge" song, reversed. Specifically, the line and a half "You move too fast, you've got to make the morning last."

As far as I know, the only item you can leave behind in the Land of Mists that you'll need later is the blanket. Every other item that you need from there is required to leave the area in the first place. You can't even go back into the city at that point. You can just go back down the mountain. Interestingly, the lever for the elevator is there the first time you enter, and if you're so inclined, you can ride it down, but Quickthorpe will take one look around and nope himself back up. It's one of those things that gives me the feeling that this game was scoped something like Torin's Passage - originally developed to be part of a longer series, setting up sequel hooks as it goes and ultimately having even some of the originally planned content cut. Some of the useless items are too elaborate to have been thrown in there just to take up inventory space. It reminds me of parts of Kingdom O' Magic where you could do things that were irrelevant to the active quest, only there's no other quest in this game for them to be part of. And the parts of the story that are relevant are often skippable. You can bypass Ishmael's room entirely, go straight to the gorgon's room, and whip out your spear without even talking to her, and proceed with the quest that way.

These are just some of the complaints that led me to hate this game so much when I played it the first time, but what kind of design makes the action you want to take always the last one in the cycle? Walk should be the first option for a path, not the last. If you're holding an item, using it should be the default option. Taking things out of the inventory will be the reason you opened the inventory almost every time. The earliest implementations I'm aware of featuring selectable actions for a cursor either had lists of actions or icons representing the actions, with the right-click cycle being a convenience feature rather than the only way to interact with things. The game's content is serviceable if you choose to interact with it in the ways it wants you to, but it makes that interaction inherently painful every step of the way.

I read that you can return later but I wasn't sure on the time frame. I did a couple of short test run but it really wasn't long enough to trigger it. The guides that I've read for this game don't express how to achieve the kelp on the first try, they pretty much say good luck and return later to try again. I probably should have expressed this more in the video but I didn't really think about it at the time.

Who discovered the Simon & Garfunkel loop?

I didn't really explore any further than the wooden tower on the return to the Land of Mist. I had already picked up the blanket and didn't feel the need to walk around and explore the region again. One thing that I did notice was the boat being docked in the city again after returning from the tower.

I was expecting more with Ishmael, especially after we discovered his identity. I even mapped out how to return to his room after defeating the gorgon but he didn't have any new dialogue for us.

I completely agree with what you said about the verb functions in the game world, they really aren't intuitive. The inventory is the most frustrating part of the game for me, I'm not sure whether it's down to limitations within the game engine or laziness.

I'm having a good time with the game with a guide and I have another save file where I'm exploring extensively. But I haven't had the luxury of going into it old-school and experiencing it blind, from what I've experienced even with this level of help I can't even imagine the levels of frustration. This game is out to punish you for doing some basic adventure gaming.

marshmallow creep posted:

Vivern: "We just wanted our freedom but we were betrayed."
Quickthorpe: "You make me sick and I want nothing more than to kill you."

Why is this guy the hero again?

By popular demand posted:

Everyone else passed on the obvious suicide mission.

There's this and he's also had it drilled it into him that these creatures are evil and must die so he's people can be saved.

sb hermit posted:

I got the joke about holding your breath for 10 minutes.

I'm not sure what the hairpin in the pillow represents exactly, but either it could be a discreet lover or the captain puts his hair up when indoors or cleaning himself. So I guess it would be embarrassing if he couldn't manage his hair without it.

I did a quick search online but I don't really know what to actually search for. I typed in some key words but got nothing in return. This seems like a really specific implication but I have no idea what they were aiming for.

Rocket Baby Dolls fucked around with this message at 00:32 on Aug 13, 2022

# ¿ Aug 13, 2022 00:25

Rocket Baby Dolls: Mar 3, 2006; Normally I don't make aesthetic criticisms in other peoples' homes, but that rug looks like a beaver exploded. If meat is murder, then that rug is at least a severe beating.

I've just completed a test run of the final chapter and it will be fairly short compared to the others. The version that I'm playing will contain the original ending and I'm not sure how I feel about it as it's very... unpredictable. I'll talk more about it when I post the video.

I'm not sure where I can get hold of the European release but I will see what I can do while I'm recording more for the death reel.

Zaroff posted:

One curious thing I noticed - after blatantly stealing the Star Trek transporter sound effect a few episodes back, Vivern�s room sounds like it has the hum of the TNG warp core in the background, interspersed with various TNG-y beeps and boops.

I thought that I heard them too but during the recording, I was too distracted to take notice at the time.

# ¿ Aug 13, 2022 23:02

Rocket Baby Dolls: Mar 3, 2006; Normally I don't make aesthetic criticisms in other peoples' homes, but that rug looks like a beaver exploded. If meat is murder, then that rug is at least a severe beating.

This video is the finale of Fable! In this video, Quickthorpe explores the Land Of Shadows to find the last gem and then returns to face Ismael before putting an end to all of this madness.

Bonus Videos

It turns out that I did have the North American release and, thankfully, I was able to use my save files to capture the alternate ending with ease:

Alternate North American Ending

On another note, I've replayed the Land Of Mists and I've been unable to find any death scenes.

# ¿ Aug 14, 2022 13:56

Rocket Baby Dolls: Mar 3, 2006; Normally I don't make aesthetic criticisms in other peoples' homes, but that rug looks like a beaver exploded. If meat is murder, then that rug is at least a severe beating.

I'm back in the Land Of Shadows with trawling for death sequences. I'm having to stop hear as I'm heading out for the rest of the day and night but i've noticed a few things along the way:

There seems to be a bugged death sequence with Khor, if you approach him with a weapon he gives you two warnings before he announces that he is going to spear you. But he does that flash of animation and nothing else happens apart from the game soft locks like Quickthorpe has actually been killed. I'm going to leave this out for now.
If you offer a gold coin to the legless sailor he will tell you a short story.
You can enter the Ogre's cave via the well and before you see him leave. But he isn't there to be and neither is the key under the pillow.
I didn't try to talk to the siren before but you can and you are able to survive the conversation.
You can cover the meat in the engine gunk and then feed it to the shark. It doesn't affect the shark in any way though.
If you're quick enough you can click on Quickthorpe's girlfriend before she goes back inside:

# ¿ Aug 14, 2022 15:10

Rocket Baby Dolls: Mar 3, 2006; Normally I don't make aesthetic criticisms in other peoples' homes, but that rug looks like a beaver exploded. If meat is murder, then that rug is at least a severe beating.

The original ending is very left field and with the talk earlier of obviously cut content and with the amount of unusable items, my thoughts are that this wasn't the ending that they originally intended. There's a very good chance that development had to be cut short and the ending was just tacked on because they ran out of time and/or money.

# ¿ Aug 14, 2022 15:52

Rocket Baby Dolls: Mar 3, 2006; Normally I don't make aesthetic criticisms in other peoples' homes, but that rug looks like a beaver exploded. If meat is murder, then that rug is at least a severe beating.

The story is a little complicated as it really is easy to miss plot points if you don't speak to people directly, something that should be automatic. You're also able to miss plot points because a major character is hidden in a drat maze!

I agree with Nidoking that the quest is pretty much pointless. Ismael is dieing, Quickthorpe would have achieved more if he just stayed at home. But we've got to remember the quest was given by the village priest who was working for Ismael. We were working for the baddies the entire time!

Vivern revealed to us that Ismael had betrayed her and her friends which ultimately lead to them being turned into beasts. They knew that Ismael wanted the key to gain the Mecubarz' power and were guarding the gems so he couldn't achieve it. Initially, Ismael tries to convince us that giving him the jewels is in our best interest but he is betrayed by Vivern. This is all confirmed by Ismael when we revisit him.

The quest is ultimately pointless as there is no winning scenario. We give Ismael what he wants and he kills us, we defeat him and we get that ending.

I'm starting to think that what marshmallow creep said is correct and thinking that Nidoking was right in a sequel being planned. All we see is Quickthorpe entering the machine while wearing a headset and all of a sudden he's in jail. Is that actually Quickthorpe waking up in reality or is he experiencing a simulated world through the headset?

# ¿ Aug 14, 2022 22:47

Rocket Baby Dolls: Mar 3, 2006; Normally I don't make aesthetic criticisms in other peoples' homes, but that rug looks like a beaver exploded. If meat is murder, then that rug is at least a severe beating.

marshmallow creep posted:

Okay, going back to the first episode, they do say in the introduction that this whole story is in the head of a very sick man. "It's a fable, in a way."

I had forgotten about that part.

# ¿ Aug 15, 2022 07:48

Rocket Baby Dolls: Mar 3, 2006; Normally I don't make aesthetic criticisms in other peoples' homes, but that rug looks like a beaver exploded. If meat is murder, then that rug is at least a severe beating.

CapitanGarlic posted:

I mean, now that the game's finished I reckon it's fair to post the Truncated version

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAJiCERMxfI

I wasn't sure what to expect. After a minute or so I was expecting all of the chosen lines to make it sound like a Carry On film.

# ¿ Aug 15, 2022 08:56

Rocket Baby Dolls: Mar 3, 2006; Normally I don't make aesthetic criticisms in other peoples' homes, but that rug looks like a beaver exploded. If meat is murder, then that rug is at least a severe beating.

Bonus Videos

Death Reel

I'd like to think that I've been thorough with this as these are all the encounters with death that I could find in the game.

This video will be the last update of this LP. Thank you, everyone, for being part of this in any capacity. I really enjoyed Fable, but this is from the perspective of someone who went into this using a guide and with helpful discussion in the thread. If I went into this completely blind I'm sure that my opinion of the game would be very different.

I'm planning to LP The Space Bar next and it's a game that I've been wanting to do for a very long time, it's just that I've never been sure if I could actually do it. To be honest, I'm still not entirely sure now but I want to attempt it.

# ¿ Aug 15, 2022 23:12

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# ¿ May 9, 2024 22:54

Rocket Baby Dolls: Mar 3, 2006; Normally I don't make aesthetic criticisms in other peoples' homes, but that rug looks like a beaver exploded. If meat is murder, then that rug is at least a severe beating.

sb hermit posted:

I like how all the bystanders to the various deaths (like the shark death or the river death) don't react when someone perishes right in front of them.

The captain got his money and told Quickthorpe which way to go and that's the way that Quickthorpe went. They probably didn't even know that the shark was there.

# ¿ Aug 15, 2022 23:54

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Let's Play! > Let's Play: Fable (No, not that one!)